M A I N   N E W S

Pak reviving militant camps

Srinagar, April 27
Despite Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee extending an "olive branch" to Pakistan, reports indicate that Islamabad was reactivating militant camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and other areas.

Militants arrested recently and information collected from border outposts indicate that all five camps of the Lashker-e-Toiba in PoK have been revived and several hundred cadres, 80 per cent of them foreign mercenaries, were being trained in them, official sources said here.

These militants who were arrested after Mr Vajpayee’s two-day visit to the Kashmir valley, have reportedly told their interrogators that several camps in Northern areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, which had been shut for long, have been reactivated to carry out violent activities in Kashmir.

They revealed that several ultras were waiting across the border for the snow to melt to enter the valley, the sources said.

The militants had specific instructions to carry out as many suicide attacks as they could, the sources said.

Mr Vajpayee’s public rally at the Sher-e-Kashmir stadium was a cause of frustration for the Pakistan-based militants, they said.

The government, as part of its new strategy to check infiltration from across the border, was erecting barbed wire fence at several points along the Line of Control, the sources said.

According to the sources, the proposal for fencing was jointly mooted by the Army and the Jammu and Kashmir Government to the Centre which was cleared for implementation with the former bearing cost of laying double barbed wire fence at several places along the Line of Control.

Besides this, the Army has also decided to prevent the "Gujjars" from going to higher reaches during summers following reports that militants were entering villages posing as shepherds.

The Army has already deployed "sensors" at strategic points along the LoC to detect any infiltration and now "thermal devices" were being used for the purpose.

JAMMU: The BSF has retrieved a crawling trench line from the Pakistani Rangers in the sensitive Chicken Neck area along the international border in the Jammu sector, BSF officials said.

"We retrieved a Pak-setup crawling trench in 100-200 metres of land inside Indian territory in Sangral area in Chicken Neck sub-sector along the international border sometime back," the officials said here today.

However, the BSF ruled out any attack by Pakistan in an attempt to capture Indian territory, adding the issue was a result of mistake by the Rangers and the matter was resolved after a flag meeting between the BSF and the Rangers.

"The trench was dug by the Rangers by mistake when Operation Parakaram was going on, but it came to our notice after demining," the officials said.

Thereafter, talks were held with the Rangers, who admitted their mistake and retreated, they said. "Everything is now peaceful. There was no bloodshed as the pillars were demarcated to point out Indian territory," they said.

"Such mistakes happen sometimes. Even BSF troops, during fencing, entered their (Pakistan) territory to fence by mistake," the BSF said. PTI